Become a social animal or not

Dear Bob …

I am a lower-level manager with a small group (no managers) reporting to me. I am having a bit of a problem with “after hours” communications. I have a family, a wife and a kid, and I am lucky enough to want to go home after work. Thus, I tend to skip going for a beer or two after work with either my employees or other coworkers (who are mostly single and childless). I am also awkward when it comes to showing a good time to a boss coming to town.

On a larger scale, I am not comfortable “inventing” business trips to the headquarters locations (a couple of them), just to mingle with the bosses. Overall, I like the way the project is going, and I think that my team is quite happy. On the other hand, some friends keep telling me that I miss important opportunities by neglecting these non-planned mini-socials and “diplomacy trips”.

Should I indeed worry more about doing good work and being a good manager and coworker in the office, or am I missing some important skills that I’d better acquire?

Sorry-I-cant-tonight

Dear Sorry …

It’s like this: personal relationships both precede and outlive the individual decisions that get made. Nobody ever has enough time to validate the assertions made in budget proposals, capital proposals, project plans and so forth, so they have to base their decisions in part on the extent they find you trustworthy and reliable. If they haven’t had a chance to size you up, they’re guessing.

So it’s to your benefit and theirs to become more of a known quantity. That makes the trips to headquarters worthwhile. It also makes going for an after-hours beer with a visiting boss worthwhile.

By the way: You have no obligation to “show a visiting boss a good time.” There are those who do, up to and in some cases well beyond the bounds of good taste. But it’s a terrible idea.

The words, “Honest, honey, I didn’t want to go to the strip joint, but I had to show the boss a good time,” have been uttered more than once, and they’re never true. If the boss is the sort who wants to do this, he can do it by himself. Act as his tour guide and you mark yourself as someone who knows where the strip joints are. I can imagine the boss’s thought process: “Hmmm. Jim knows where the good strip clubs are. I like the cut of his jib. Clearly, he’s an up and comer.” It’s probably happened, although not very often and less often now than previously. It doesn’t happen in successful companies because successful companies need leaders who know how to lead effectively, not how to navigate to the nearest strip joint.

Substitute baseball game for strip joint and the situation is a bit more ambiguous but not by much. What’s the point, after all?

The words, “I won’t be home for dinner. The boss is in town and I have a chance to talk with him after hours over a beer or two,” are an entirely different matter. Which is to say, you have neither an obligation to show your boss a good time nor does it confer any advantage to do so, but gaining the boss’s trust through an informal conversation in an off-site setting is important. You can talk about a wider range of business issues than you can in formal meetings, and you can get to know the boss personally, which increases his or her trust in you, and your ability to read between the lines.

As for your staff’s after-hours social gatherings, think of it this way: Going out for a beer with your staff is the exact same thing as going out for a beer with your boss, only in reverse.

Does this mean you should do this every night, only seeing your family on weekends and holidays? Of course not.

The word “balance” comes to mind, and it’s a good way to think about this. Never and always are generally the wrong answer. Keep it in balance.

– Bob

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